IF you could design the ideal hiking playground you’d probably want some soaring forests, craggy mountains topped with a few photogenic dollops of snow, grassy meadows sprinkled with wildflowers, and some crystal clear lakes so you can soak it up twice in mirrored reflections.
Easier though, is to simply head to Colorado in the United States. With the Rocky Mountains as its backbone, it’s bursting with epic trails across 432 state parks, 13 national parks and monuments, 13 national forests and grasslands, and 58 famed “14ers” (that’s peaks above 14,000ft/4,200m). For a state only slightly bigger than our own Victoria, it’s chock-full of mind-blowing scenery.
I’ve spent many winter months here, soaking up Rockies vistas from ski runs, and when the snow melts, it’s the hiking trails that beckon. For an Aussie like me, the sheer scale of the landscape, and the endless possibilities it offers, are seriously exciting, if a tad overwhelming (prepare to open up a can of worms).
Considering the 9,146km of dedicated hiking trails here (up to 62,764km if you include routes utilising
